thers regarded him as slaves might a
stern master. When Robert started his work in his uncle's office he
started handicapped by this sentiment towards his uncle. He looked
like his uncle, he talked like him, he had his same gentle
stiffness, he was never unduly familiar. He was at once placed in
the same category by the workmen.

Robert Lloyd did not concern himself in the least as to what the
employes in his uncle's factory thought of him. Nothing was more
completely out of his mind. He was conscious of standing on a firm
base of philanthropic principle, and if ever these men came directly
under his control, he was resolved to do his duty by them so far as
in him lay.

Ellen, since her graduation, had been like an animal which circles
about in its endeavors to find its best and natural place of
settlement.

"What shall I do next?" she had said to her mother. "Shall I go to
work, or shall I try to find a school somewhere in the fall, or
shall I stay here, and help you with some work I can do at home? I
know father cannot afford to support me always at home."

"I guess he can afford to support his only daughter at home a little
while after she has just got out of school," Fanny had returned
indignantly, with a keen pain at her heart.

Fanny mentioned this conversation to Andrew that night after Ellen
had gone to bed.

"What do you think--Ellen was asking me this afternoon what she had
better do!" said she.

"What she had better do?" repeated Andrew, vaguely. He looked
shrinkingly at Fanny, who seemed to him to have an accusing air, as
if in some way he were to blame for something. And, indeed, there
were times when Fanny in those days did blame Andrew, but there was
some excuse for her. She blamed him when her own back was filling
her very soul with the weariness of its ache as she bent over the
seams of those grinding wrappers, and when her heart was sore over
doubt of Ellen's future. At those times she acknowledged to herself
that it seemed to her that Andrew somehow might have gotten on
better. She did not know how, but somehow. He had not had an
expensive family. "Why had he not succeeded?" she asked herself. So
there was in her tone an unconscious recrimination when she answered
his question about Ellen.

"Yes--what she had better go to work at," said Fanny, dryly, her
black eyes cold on her husband's face.

Andrew turned so white that he frightened her. "Go to work!" said
he. Then all at once he gav